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Kansas — The Lecompton Constitution. 



SPEECH 



v^' 



OF 




HON. JAMES BUrriNTON, OF MASS. 



Delivered in the House of Representatives, March 24th, 1858. 



Mr. Chairman, a little less than two years ago, 
I had the honor to address the House of Repre- 
sentatives upon the application of the people of 
Kansas to be admitted into the Union with a con- 
stitution which they had formed for themselves. 
That constitution was unexceptionable in its char- 
acter and general provisions. It embodied the 
will of a large majority of the people ; and, had it 
been accepted by Congress, and had Kansas been 
admitted as a State, the then existing difficulties 
would have been settled, and the subsequent 
scenes and events which form the blackest stain 
upon our national reputation would have been 
prevented. I advocated, sincerely and earnestly, 
the admission, as an act of justice to the people 
who asked respectfully and in a proper manner to 
be permitted to join the Union, and also as a wise, 
just, and politic means of removing this exciting 
and dangerous question from the national coun- 
cils. The administration party then in power op- 
posed the admission successfully ; and during the 
time that has since elapsed, Kansas has been the 
theatre of crime and disorder unparalleled in our 
history. 

The arm of the Federal Government, which 
should have have shielded and protected the peo- 
ple in the enjoyment of their rights, has sustained 
the invasion of those rights, and has sustained the 
minority in establishing its supremacy over the 
majority, until the executive power, instead of 
being respected and loved as a protector and 
friend, is slighted and detested as an enemy and 
an oppressor. Since the first session of the last 
Congress an entire revolution has taken place. 
Now there is an application that Kansas shall be 
admitted as a State; but under how dififerent cir- 
cumstances! Instead of a constitution embodying 
the will of the people, one is offered to which five- 
sixths of the people have expressed their opposi- 
tion. Instead of institutions which the people 
have chosen and prefer, there are provisions in 
the organic law which they loathe and detest. 



And this constitution, framed by a minority of a 
convention authoiized by a Legislature chosen by 
a minority of the people, and adopted by a mi- 
nority of one-sixth of the legal voters, is attempted 
to be forced upon an unwilling people by the Ad- 
ministration and its friends. The reasons which 
led me to favor the adoption of the constitution 
presented to Congress two years ago, cumpel me 
to oppose the acceptance of that which is now pre- 
sented to us. And I propose to submit, as briefly 
as possible, the considerations which influence my 
opposition to it. 

The debate upon this question has taken so wide 
a range, that almost all the issues between the two 
sections of the country have been discussed, and 
the extreme views on both sides have been pre- 
sented to the House. I think that some of these 
do not necessarily present themselves. The ques- 
tion has enough of the elements of discord in itself, 
and I regret that topics that do not necessarily 
appertain to it should have been introduced. In 
the conclusions which I have formed upon the 
subjects now legitimately before us, I have not 
found it necessary to consider whether slavery is 
or is not a just, moral and humane institution. 
It is not merely because slavery would be estab- 
lished in Kansas by the Lecompton constitution, 
that I oppose its admission as a State. There are 
a sufficient number of other objections which 
compel me to oppose it ; objections which arise in 
the incipient steps which were taken to organize 
a government of the Territory, and which increase 
in number and force from the first invasion of the 
Missourians to overpower the actual residents, 
down to the present time. Had a constitution 
recognizing and authorizing slavery been legally 
adopted by tiie people, and had they clearly and 
unequivocally offered such a constitution, endorsed 
by a majority, and demanded admission under it, 
the question whether slavery would be a sufficient 
objection to the admission of a State would be 
fairly before us. Should a State ever ask to be 



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admitted into the Union with a pro-slavery consti- ] 
tution while I am a member of Congress, 1 shall 
then feel obliged to determine whether or not 
the pro-slavery provisions would be a sufficient 
objecion to the admission to require me to vote 
against it. 

While I say that there are enough other con- 
siderations besides that of slavery which require 
me to oppose the imposition of the Lecompton 
constitution upon the people of Kansas, it is not 
because I wish to avoid a discussion of that ques- 
tion of slavei'y which has produced at diiferent 
times so great excitement in the i-ountry ; and 
which is now convulsing the people and attracting 
the eyes of the whole civilized world upon us, 
■watching (o see if our institutions can stand firm 
against these violent political shocks. Could the 
men who frained our Federal constitution have 
foreseen the extent of the danger which then lay 
hidden under this question, they undoubtedly 
would have provided for its settle -nent, either by 
giving Cot'gress the power, clearly and unequivo- 
cally, to control the establishment of slavery in 
the Territories, or, whut is perhaps more piobable 
considering the prevailing dissatisfaction with, and 
hostility to, the inst tution existing both North 
and South at that time. Congress itself would have 
prohibited forever its extension in all Territories, 
as it did in the Northwestern Territory. No hu- 
man foresight could then have apprehended that 
slaverv, which Virginia and North Carolina, equally 
with Pennsylvania and Mas achusetts, denounced 
as a great evil, the gradual and entire abolition of 
which had, as was supposed, been secured by its 
prohibition in the Northwestern Territory, and 
the prohibition of the importation of slaves after 
the year 1808, could have grown into such im- 
portance, and so absorbed all other questions as {o 
threaten the continuance of the Union, which was 
then being consolidated. The causes which have 
made the slaveholding interest one of such magni- 
tude, so deaily cherished by the South, did not 
exist at the time of the formation of tlie consti- 
tution. 

The subsequent discovery and development of 
the immense agricultural resources of the South, 
unknown at that time, offered the opportunity of 
rapidly accumulating great wealth by the employ- 
ment of slave labor in the cotton fields, and cu- 
pidity and avarice at once operated, to convert 
what till then had been thought an evil and a 
curse, into a blessing, from which all moral and 
political good flowed. While the sentiment of the 
South underwent this change, perhaps naturally 
enough, considering the infirmities of human 
nature, the North became more confident in its 
hostility to slavery, and this speck upon the dawn 
of our prosperity soon enlarged and became a black 
lowering cloud, beaiing a tempest in its bosom, 
threatening to overwhelm and destroy the fabric 
which was yet scarcely established upon its foun- 
dations. Timid apprehensions of the conse- 
quences, or still baser influences, have at different 
times operated upon a portion of the North suffi- 
ciently to avoid and delay a definitive settlement 
of the question. Concession of Northern rights 
and principles, falsely called compromises, have 
been yielded to the clamorous demands of the 
South, until the natural result has ensued of an 



attempt at absolute domination, regardless of even 
the forms of justice or fair proceeding. Had the 
North been unanimous in its opposition to the so- 
called Missouri compromise act, had there been no 
traitors to the sentiment. and interests of their con- 
stituents, it is my belief that our history would 
not have furnished the subsequent instances of 
violent sectional strife which now tarnish its pages. 
The question would never again have assumed 
sufficient imj5ortance to have produced serious agi- 
tation, the North then conceded all that the South 
asked, and received in return some promises, to 
be fulfilled in a distant future, for which fulfillment 
there were no guarantees, except the good faith 
and honor of the South. 

Now, when the first occasion arises to test the 
good fliith of the South, how is it kept ? Tiie Mis- 
souri compromise, unjust as it was, had been uni- 
versally acquiesced in for thirty-one years; the 
agitation on the slavery question hud almost en- 
tirely subs'ded, and the most friendly relations and 
feelings existed between the different sections, 
when the South, with a few Northern co operators, 
by organizing a Territorial government when none 
was there needed, and where, if there had been, 
there was no demand for any unusual provisions 
in its organization, wantonly threw a firebrand to 
reillumine the flames of civil dissension and revive 
the sectional bitterness which always attends the 
agitatioH of the slavery question. The solemn en- 
gagements of the South were disregarded. The 
faith which they had pledge 3, and for which they 
had received a consideration, was broken. Their 
honor, which they profess to regard ?o highly, 
and which had been plighted that if we would let 
them have Missouri, they would ask lor nothing 
more north of the line of thjrtysix degrees thirty 
minutes, was violated. We ought not now to be 
surprised that the consummation of the act is at- 
tempted by the most odious frauds. In the repeal 
of the Missouri compromise were the "seids and 
roots of iniquity and shame." From this egg was 
hatched all those subsequent atrocities which have 
cuhniirated in an attempt to enforce upon Kinsas 
a tyranny as monstrous as any ever attempted by 
a despotic go7ernment. 

The North pronounced its judgment irpon this 
first act in the series, by consigning those of their 
Representatives who had so basely betrayed them, 
to a political grave. But specious arguments and 
delusive pretences were not wanting to appease 
the indignation which was aroused. Squatter 
sovereignty, the right of the people to regulate 
their own domestic institutions, tickled the ears 
and deluded the judgment of honest men at the 
North. Assurances were loudly proclaimed and 
often repeated thi-oughout all the free States, from 
the Penobscot to "Lower Egypt," that if the can- 
didate of the Democratic party shou d be eltcted, 
the whole influence of the Administration would 
be used to secure to the people of Kansas, the 
rights guarantied to them by the Nebraska act. 
The votes of thousands of honest Democrats were 
obtained by these falsehoods, who would have 
seen their hands wither before they would have 
deposited a ballot for this Administration, could 
they have foreseen that it would go beyond its pre- 
decessor in its base prostration before the shrine 
of slavery. 



\ 



The pro-slavery pirty, having just broken their 
faith and violated their solemn pledges, by the 
repeal of the Missouri compromise, now offered 
new pledges; and to relieve, if possible, the odium 
which always attaches to an act of perfidy, pro- 
posed a substitute, and plighted the publ c laiih by 
an act of Congress, assuring the people in terms 
as clear as language can make them, that the in- 
habitants of the Territories shall be K-ft " to form 
and regulate their domestic institutions in their 
own way. " And here begins the series of acts 
always attended by fraud or violence ; the direct 
result of which, if Congress accepts the Locomp- 
ton constitution, will be to deprive the people of 
Kansas, of the rights in tlie exercise of which the 
Federal Government had solemnly assured them 
they should be protected. 

Contrary to expectation, however, the precon- 
ceived plan of makin:r Kansas a slave State was 
not to be accomplished without a struggle. Emi- 
grant aid societies were formed, and an " organ- 
ized emigration " poured i.ito the Territory a pop- 
ulation who had the courage, the energy, and the 
■will, to contend with firmue-s and patience, by all 
lawful means, against a desperate party which, 
sustained by the whole influence and power of the 
Federal Government, was striving to wrest the 
Territory from freedom. The projectors of the 
scheme to make Kansas a slave State were sorely 
troubled by the success of this emigration, and, 
in the bitterness of their rage, heaped oppi'obrious 
epithe<;s upon the emigrants — the late Executive 
of the United States even descending to denounce 
them in special a message. They were called fac- 
tious, impudent intruders into a place where they 
did not belong, and where they went only for a 
special purpose, which interfered giavely with 
ihe projects of certain political schemers. Sir, 
^^\At business was it of the President, or is it of 
yo^lpf or mine, or any one else, for what p irpose 
they went there, as long as that purpose was law- 
ful? They were a people whose education and 
whose moral and physical condition reflected 
credit on the count'y from which they emigrated, 
and gave assurance of as useful, law-loving, and 
law-abiding population, as ever formed a new 
State. If they made any sacrifices in leaving 
homes abounding with all the comforts of civili- 
zation, to make their abode in a wilderness, for 
the sake of accomplishing what they believed to 
be a great and good result, all honor to them for 
their devotion to freedom, and for their readiness 
to encounter hardships and dangers for the ettab- 
lishment of their principles, and the principles of 
their revolutionary ancestors, in a new State. 
They went to the Territory with their families 
and household g )ods, intending to remiin there, 
to establish their homes there, to build up villages, 
and erect churches and school-houses and mills, 
and rear up their children to be good and useful 
citizens. No new Territory has received a better 
class of emigi ants, many of whom are far superior 
in moral worth and intellectual cultivation to those 
who have denounced them. 

This population formed a part of the census of 
1855 ; and the election of March 30th, of that year, 
having been ordered, the pro-slavery party found 
that something nuist be done to defeat the decided 
majority which clearly existed against them. Less 



than one year previous, the public faith had been 
pledged that the peonle of the Territory should 
govern themselves as they saw fit; but the astute 
ai d unscrupulous managers of the pro-slavery 
party took the liberty, under the unexpected state 
of things which had arisen, of making piactically 
an informal and somewhat illegal amendment to 
the act, so that in effect, in-tead of the people of 
Kansas, it was the people of Missouri, wIjO should 
1 e left to foim and regulate the domestic int^titu- 
tions of Kansas in their own way. Duiing the 
few days preceding the election, the roads leading 
from the Missouri border into Kansas, were filled 
with armed men, without women or children; 
with no furniture, except that of the camp ; every- 
thing indicating an invasion, and not an immigra- 
tion. The distTicts where they voted, were dot- 
ted with their camp-fires, and "night was made 
hideous by their revels. " 

The few days succeeding the election, the roads 
were again filled by these men, with their backs 
turned on Kansas, making their way home, to 
relate to their families the incidents of their little 
jaunt over the border. Can there be any doubt 
what was the duty of the government officials at 
that election? Unquestionably they should have 
so ordered it that the bona fide inhabitants should 
have voted, and those alone. If their arrange- 
ments to secure this were defeated by the irrup- 
tion into certain districts of an overwhelming 
armed force, against which they had not the means 
to contend, they should have so reported it, and 
have never consented to make returns, for there 
were no legal returns to be made, until a fair elec- 
tion had been held by actual residents, who alone 
had the exclusive right to make an election. 

15ut it was not the power, it was the will to do 
justice and cairy out the pledges which Congress 
had given, that was wanting. Kansas must be 
made a slave State at all hazards. That had been 
determined upon. But as the people would not 
do it, if, as h-jd been promised them, they should 
be loft perfectly free to form their own laws, the 
unscrupulous official agents and instruments of 
'the slave power returned tbe Legislature elected 
by the Missouriaus, and these representatives of 
a foreign people thus fraudulently returned, im- 
mediately proceeded to perform the work which 
they had been chosen to execute. 

The free-State people were to be opprsssed, in- 
timidated, and, if possible, crushed out and ex- 
pelled ; and this was attempted by robbery, arson, 
and inu'der in the country, and by tyrannical and 
intolerable laws in the Legislature. 

The houses of the fiee-State inhabitants were 
burned, their crops were destroyed ; hey were sub- 
jected to the most cruel persecutio.is, and when 
they sought redress in the courts, they could pro- 
cure scarcely a show of an eflbct to punish or ar- 
rest the ruffians. This is no exaggerated picture ; 
it is well attested by men entitled to credit, and 
who came home to the communities where they 
were well known, to relate it. The Legislature 
passed laws which no one dare d-ifend in a free, 
civilized connnunity. The right of free speech, 
the freedom of the press, the rights of conscience 
were destroyed. There cannot bo found to-day, 
in the records of any government, however arbi- 
trary and tyrannical, laws so infamous, so dls- 



graceful to tbe enacting power, as those enacted 
by this foreign Legislature, established by an 
armed invasion, over a people who are derisively 
told that they may form and regulate. their institu- 
tions in their own way. 

The pro slavery party, however, had mistaken 
their men. The people of Kansas were not of 
that material which could be cowed by intimida- 
tion, or crushed by persecution, sustained though 
it was by Federal dragoons. Accustomed to obey 
the laws of a real government, they disdained and 
disregarded the enactments of a usurpation. They 
held a convention, chosen by a majority of the 
people, and framed a constitution, adopted by the 
same majority of the people, and formed a State 
government, and for this they have been declared 
rebels, guilty of treason. Where was the rebel- 
lion, and what acts constituted it ? There was no 
insurrection against the legal authorities ; there 
was no resistance to the enforcement of legal en- 
actments ; there was never an attempt to put the 
Topeka government in operation against the laws 
or officers of the United States. There was sim- 
ply an organization which Congress was respect- 
fully petitioned to recognize ; and it was never 
contemplated by any body of men, as far as I 
know, that it should go into operation without 
such recognition. The whole proceeding, from 
beginning to end, was entirely legal and proper, 
and in accordance with precedents established in 
the formation of other States. 

The troops of the United States compelled an 
obedience to laws which the people did not be- 
lieve to lave any validity, because they were not 
permitted to have any voice in tbe enactment of 
them, and because they were the tyrani'ical and op- 
pressive enactments of a usurpation. They would 
not have obeyed them if they had not been com- 
pelled to ; but they have made no armed resistance 
to their enforcement. It is an every-day occurrence 
in all the States for the officers to be obliged to 
enforce some law or other; yet I never heard that 
those who were so compelled to a reluctant obe- 
dience were called rebels or considered such. Had 
the inhabitants resisted with arms the enforce- 
ment of the acts passed by the usurpers, there are 
many who would have applauded them, and had 
the people called for aid, undoubtedly they would 
have had it, and matters would have been precipi- 
tated. But they took the wiser and more prudent 
course, and deserved great praise and honor for 
their temperance and patience. They resolved to 
tyust to the justice of their cause. They would 
"test the truth of God against fraud of man." 
They relied upon the justice of their countrymen, 
who, they believed, perhaps too confidently, would 
indignantly hurl the usurpers from their places, 
as soon as they learned the true history of their 
Climes. The party who sustain the oppressors 
would have been very glad if the free-State people 
had resisted ever so little, so that it had been 
enough to afford a slight foundation for the charges 
of factious and rebellious conduct which are re- 
peated with as much persistence as if they had 
been true. But the free- State men heroically en- 
dured the sufferings and persecutions to which 
they were subjected, rather than involve them- 
selves and thi ir friends in a direct opposition to 
the United States Government, with the immense 



possible consequences. There would be time 
enough for that when there was no hope of relief 
or redress in any other way. 

But this majority, so patient and cautious to keep 
within the strict pale of the law, continued to in- 
crease in numbers and grow stronger in their reso- 
lution. The foreign force, which had established 
a nominally legal authority over them by armed 
violence, must now devise some new mode of op- 
pression to prevent this continued accrttiou to the 
strength of the majority. They determined to ex- 
pel, if possible, some of its members, and to ren- 
der it impossible to those who remained to exer- 
cise the rights guaranteid to every citizen of the 
United States, and especially promised to the peo- 
ple of Kansas by the Kantas-Nebraska act. Laws 
were passed such as are not uncommon in coun- 
tries subject to a despotic Government ; for there 
the rulers make no pretence of deference to the 
will of the people ; but here, under our Govern- 
ment, whose fundamental principle is that the peo- 
ple shall have perfect freedom of speech and con- 
science and of action, we have, for the first time, 
an instance where the people are deprived of all of 
them. There is an attempt made to establish, by 
violence, or fraud, or any iniquity which may be 
necessary to accomplish the purpose, the relation 
of slavery among a people, a great majority of whom 
I detest it ; a great majority of the people of the 
whole country sympathizing with them in their ab- 
horrence ofit. They oppose it becau.^e they believe 
it an institution nefarious in itself, and pernicious 
in its influence. It is a curse upon any State 
where it exists ; it affects all the relations ' of a 
community, internal and external ; it is a blight 
upon moral and social progress ; it affects all the 
material interests ; it depresses the value of lands, 
it discourages and debases free labor ; and gives 
the political control and social predominance to a 
few aristocratic proprietors of slaves ; it retards 
and prevents the development of all the resour- 
ces of a State, and is a withering blight upon its 
prosperity. 

The free-State people of Kansas resist this 
scourge, which would aiilict and injure them, and 
would be a curse upon their posterity. Yet by 
those laws, which are upheld by the pro-slavery 
party, they are forbidden to write, speak, or circu- 
late in any way, the expression of their hostiUty 
to this great wrong ; and the National Adminis- 
tration emulates the oppression of foreign despo- 
tism, in its efforts to sustain, by the employment 
of United States troops, the enforcement of this 
tyranny. 

The people were also required to take an oath 
to support the organic actof the Territory, and the 
fugitive slave law. Wiio ever heard before of a 
people being required to swear that they would 
support a statute ? If it is proper to require an oath 
to support one legislative enactment, why not 
another ? why not the tariff, why not the sub- 
Treasury, wh} not any act, good, bad, or indifferent, 
insignificant or impotent, wbich Congress or a Le- 
gislature, in its wisdom or its folly, may have 
passed ? Officers are required to sweai- fidelity to 
a constitution because that is the source of all law. 
It is an embodiment of the sovereignty of the 
people, to which they owe their allegiance ; and if 
it was not sustained and enforced, there would be 



anarchy an an entire absence of authority for any 
law. But the requirement of an oath by the citi- 
zen to sustain any law, is a requirement to give 
up one of his dearest privileges, which is to op- 
pose any law as far as he can do so legally. The 
law may be unconstitutional, and he may think it 
his duty, as a good citizen, to resist its enforce- 
ment. And where, as in Kansas, the people are 
required to sustain a law which many of them do 
believe unconstitutional, and which is repugnant 
to their consciences and their sense of right, be- 
fore they can vote, it is a wanton act of injustice, 
calculated and designed, not to pr(tect the law, 
but to oppress the citizen, and deprive him of his 
right, by requiring him to do what, if he is an ho- 
nest man, it is morally impossible for him to do. 
Tliese two sections, eleven and twelve, of the law 
should be preserved and go down in history as ex- 
amples of the extremes to which the passions and 
the rage foi' power will carry men. The law accom- 
plished its intended purpose and sustained as it was 
by armed numbers, from a neighboring State effect- 
ually prevented the attendance of the free-State 
TOters at the polls, at the election in October, 1856, 
and another House of Representatives was chosen 
by a foreign people " to form and regulate the 
institutions of Kansas in their own way." 

By this Legislature was called the convention 
to frame a State constitution. The facts and inci- 
dents attending the choice and action of that con- 
vention have been so often repeated of late that I 
shall not recite the details. The people had the 
most solemn and earnest assurances from the Fe- 
deral officers, the faith of the Executive being 
pledged thereto, that the constitution should be 
submitted to the popular vote ; and strange to 
say, considering the number of pledges to them 
which had not been kept, they once more trusted 
to the honor of their opponents. It is due to the 
Governor and his Secretary to say that they did 
all they could to keep their word, and for so doing, 
one was compelled to resign, and the other was 
removed by the Executive. The convention 
framed a pro slavery constitution. As if in mock- 
ery, they offered it to the people, with the power 
to vote upon the slavery clause alone, while, if 
every vote ii* the Territory had been for the "con- 
stitution with /(oolaveiy," slavery would have been 
continued :ind established there by that constitu- 
tion. Here were a people who believed that the 
question of the establishment of slavery was of 
greater importance than any other in the forma- 
tion of their State Government. It was one 
which would have immense influence upon their 
present and future prosperity. The value of their 
property, and their means of increasing it, would 
be seriously affected by it, yet they were not per- 
mitted to decide that question. 

It is asserted that this, the only question of great 
importance to the people of Kansas, was submit- 
ted to their vote. There are many men upon this 
floor, who support the acceptance of this consti- 
tution, who I was unwilling to believe would con- 
sent to countenance and sustain so great and pal- 
pable an injustice as this is. The right to inter- 
fere with the property of slaves in the Territory 
is expressly exempted They, and, of course, 
their increase, must remain and continue blares. 
The vote, " conjtitutiou with no slavery, " could 



not affect them. Xow, I ask any man of candor and 
fairness to show me how he can maintain that the 
question of slavery was fairly submitted to the 
people. Suppose that all the people had been 
willing to vote upon the acceptance of the consti- 
tution ; I ask in what manner any means had been 
provided by the convention, or by the Legisla- 
ture, by which the people could have rejected sla- 
very ? ' The vote for the Legislature, in October, 
1857, showed clearly that a large majority of the 
people were opposed to slavery. The convention 
resolved to impose slavery upon them, against 
their expressed will; and the Administration now 
ask us to sustain and confirm this imposition. 
To make assurance doubly sure, the absolute con- 
trol of the election and the returns was given to 
the president of the convention ; he appointed the 
commissioners who appointed the judges of the 
elections, and the votes were to be returned to 
him ; he was entirely irresponsible ; he could cre- 
ate or destroy votes with perfect impunity. It is 
stated, by men competent and having the means 
to judge rightly, that there are not more than 
twenty-five hundred pro-slavery voters in the Ter- 
ritory. One of the Government officials who was- 
here, in frequent communication with the Gov- 
ernment, some three weeks before the vote on the 
constitution was to be taken, asserted that there 
would be about six thousand pro-slavery votes 
for the constitution. He returned to Kansas, and 
about six thousand votes were returned for the 
constitution. 

The constitution had been framed and adopted 
by a minority of all the members of the conven- 
tion. The people of Kansas have voted upon it ; 
and, admitting all the votes to have been cast 
which were returned, there is a clear majority of 
five thousand against the constitution. And now 
it is before us, the product of a singular series of 
minorities. It is adopted by a small minority of 
the people, and framed by the minority of a con- 
vention chosen by a minority of the people, and 
appointed by a Legislature itself elected by a mi- 
nority. And this is done in the name of popular 
sovereignty ! This is leaving the people perfectly 
free to form and regulate their own institutions 
in their own way ; and to carry out this new dem- 
ocratic system of the party which calls itself, par 
excellence, the Democratic party ! 

The first act, after this scheme comes before us, 
is to give the control of a committee, which the 
majority of the House voted to raise to investi- 
gate the facts, to the minority who opposed such 
investigation, so that this House cannot carry out 
their wishes in what relates to this project of forc- 
ing slavery upon Kansas. This has the merit of 
consistency, at least ; and I do not know but what, 
if we reject the Lecompton constitution, there will 
still be foand some means to annul our action, so 
that the voice of Congress will have as little effect 
against the will of the South, operating through its 
instrument, the Administration, as the voice of the 
people of Kansas, has had against the violence of 
border ruffians, sustained by Government officials 
and Government troops. I have not given the au- 
thorities for the facts which I have stated, because 
they have been before us, and the public know 
them well, and I did not wish to occupy the time 
of the House more than was necessary to give the 



6 



reasons which govern my vote on tliis question. 
The facts are sustained by the report of the Kan- 
sas investigating committee of the last Congress, 
by the statements of the Government (>fficials, the 
evidence taken by the Kansas Legislature, and 
the statements of individuals worthy of credit. 
They are sustained beyond all dispute, and are, 
for the most part, uncontradicted. Can there be 
a stronger argument than the recital of them ? 
They show that there has been fraud, violence, 
or Clime, at every stage of the proceedings which 
result in the presentation of this constitution for 
our acceptance. Must we use argument to con- 
vince men that they should oppose ciime? Must 
we reason with tl.eni to persuade them to condemn 
the wrong and uphold the right? 

Those who -ustain this constitution must show 
that an armed invasion did not prevent a large 
portion of the people from coming to the polls. 
They must show that laws were not passed which 
unjustly required their submission to conditions 
which an honest man could not submit to, before 
they could vote. They must show that the people 
have had a fair opportunity to express their wi-hes 
regarding this constitution ; or, if they cannot 
show tiiat, these charges, which now stand upon 
uncontroverted evidence, are untrue. In advo- 
cating the acceptance of this constitution, they 
must give their support to the crimes which have 
attended its progress : 

" They see the right, and they approve it too ; 
They know the wrong, and yet tire wrong pursue." 

The Governors who have been sent to Kansas 
to enforce the policy of the Administration in 
compelling submission to the yoke, have returned 
disgusted with the duties imposed upon them. 
Once removed from the baneful influence of im- 
mediate contact with the Administration, which, 
like the "deadly upas," seems to poison all who 
seek shelter under it, they see the iniquity of the 
scheme, and the enormity of the wrong by which 
it is attempted to enforce it. They depart for 
their post resolved to carry out the views of the 
Executive, believing, as many here believe, or 
profess to believe, that the free-State men are 
factious, rebellious fanatics, who have selected 
Kansas as the theatre of their turbulence, for no 
other purpose than to effect party political objects. 
They find them peaceful, well-disposed citizens, 
who have gone into the Territory intending to 
make their homes there, practising the mechanical 
arts, pursuing agriculture, and forming all the 
machinery of a republican community, only asking 
that they may be permitted to do so themselves, 
without the interference of another people, and 
the intimidation of the Federal troops. Five Gov- 
ernors have gone there ; their sympathies and 
their prejudices, if thsy had any, wholly with those 
who support this constitution; their private and 
political interests being to carry out the slavery 
policy, sure of the support of the Executive and 
of the South, in any measure they might adopt to 
crush out the free-soil sentiment in the Teiritory. 
In every instance, possibly with one neutral ex- 
ception, the scales have fallen from their eyes after 
a sliort residence among the people of Kansas, 

Actual observation, the evidence of their own 
senses, converted them; and their testimony hi 



favor of the free-State men and their cauie is over- 
whelming. 

The Executive sends out the Governors to afflict 
the people of Kansas, as we read in Scripture, Ba- 
lak sent Balaam to curse Israel — "Come, curse me 
Jacob, and come defy Israel." But Balaam found 
that it was the will of God that the people should 
be blessed. He answers, "And he hath blessed, 
and I cannot reverse it. He hath not beheld in- 
iquity it! Jacob ; neither liath he- seen perverseness 
in Israel." And Balak angrily says, "I called 
thee to curse mine enemies, and behold, thou hast 
altogether blessed them these three times. There- 
fore, now, flee thou to thy place. I thought to 
promote thee unto great honor ; but lo! the Lord 
hath kept thee back from honor." In the same 
manner our Democratic Balak angrily rebukes the 
Governors of Kansa?, because they obey the mani- 
fest will of the people, instead of his own. He 
removes them from office, and withholds all in- 
tended promotion and reward. I ask those gen- 
tlemen who say that the statements favorable to 
the free-State cause are misrepresentations, and 
that the arguments against the pro-slavery cause 
are the result of sectional animosity, to consider 
the fact, which I think is entitled to have great 
weight with you, that men taken from among you, 
believing as you do, and acting with you, who 
have been on the ground, and have se3n with 
their own eyes, and heard with their own ears, 
with the very best opportunities of confirming 
their belief, have renounced the opinions which 
they had upheld, and tellyou that they were de- 
ceived. They tell you that this Lecompton con- 
stitution is a monstrous iniquity ; and that if you 
persist in forcing it upon the p "Ople, you commit 
an act of oppression upon an unoffending popula- 
tion. Has this opinion of your comrades, your 
former co-operators, no weight with you ? Does 
it not compel the reflection that it is you who may 
be blinded by sectional prejudice, and actuated by 
partisan political influences ? 

The consequences of the acceptance or rejection 
of this constitution have been introduced into this 
discussion. We hear one day that the pro-.=lavery 
ticket has been elected, and the next day that the 
free State ticket has been elected. Tlie president 
of the convention maintains an oracular silence 
regarding the result of the election. I condemn his 
silence, which I cannot believe is maintained with 
an honest purpose; but the result of tliat election 
will not affect my vote. Were every officer on the 
fieeState ticket elected, executive, judicial, and 
legislative, I should oppose the acceptance of the 
constitution while it appears that the people have 
had nothing to do with its presentation to us, and 
a majority of them are opposed to it. The people 
say that they will resist wiih arms any attempt to 
force this constitution upon them. I think it 
more than probable that they will do so. I should 
justify and applaud such a course, as I do the re- 
resistance of our ancestors to the illegal and op- 
pressive impositions of the mother country. I 
should deplore the occasion of the revolution as I 
sh luld the consequences likely to follow it ; but 
my belief and apprehensions do not influence me 
to vote for the rejection of the constitution. I 
believe that on a question which involves a prin- 
ciple it is better to vote for the right, according 



to one's best knowledge and judgment, and leave 
the conscqiif-ncos to Ood. 

It is Paid, that if the constitution is rejoctod 
there will be attempts to secede made by some of 
the southi^rn States. I do not believe it. I have 
no doubt that there are men who wonM gladly 
see such an attempt, and wlio have labored and 
intrigued to bring it about. But the people will 
not sustain them, and thiir traitorous effort.-^ would 
be as abortive as tho.=e of Catiline. But if I am 
mistaken, and serinus attempts to secede sliall be 
made —if any men are resolved to try to break up 
the Union for this Cause, I say, let them try it. 
We have listened with patience to these threats 
of disunion for a long time They may or may 
not have hid their intended effect ; but the South 
has alwaysi obtained wlial; it demand'd. It was 
the intention of tho>e who formed our Govern- 
ment, to restrict sluvery to it* then existing limits. 

Had the North been true to itself at the time 
of the Missouri compromise, and firmly maintained 
that slavery and slave representation should ne- 
v»r be extended into fee territory, the question 
would have beon settled forever. The South 
carried thiir point then, thi^y carried it in the nd- 
mission of Texas, and ir, the passage of the Kansas- 
Nebraska bill, alvva^s growing moie exorbitant 
in their demand-^, and more violent in insisting 
upon them, until now they claim everything. The 
Executiee is wholly theirs. The Supreme Court 
have degraded t'e bench to the purposes of the 
political stump, and from their tribunal have ut- 
tered political huangues upon a subject whicli 



they had but just before declared was not before 
them for judicial action. The South are exulting 
in the expectation that the North will coniinue to 
yield until the toleration of slavery, more or less 
temporary, shall he compelled in all the States of 
the Union. Unquestionably a large majoiity of 
the people are opposed to the fuithcr extension of 
slavery, and it is full time to try whether our Con- 
stitution, which is called the greatest example of 
popular government that has ever existed, has 
suificient strcneth to cairy out the principle that 
the ni:'joiity shall govern. 

This question has been suffered to agitate the 
countiy for neaily forty years. It is now before 
us in the most odious form it has ever assumed. 
Heretofore we have been required only to permit 
slavery to remain where it had existed for a long 
time, and where the people wished to retiin it. 
Now we are asked to as.-ist you to establish it 
wherp seven-eighths of the people hate and detest 
it. To force this upon us is tyranny as manifest 
an i as oppressive as any that was ever exercised. 
It is worse than the threatened overthrow of the 
Constitution, for it is a violation of the grent princi- 
pl(! on which the Constitution i.-< founded. If men 
will Pttike this blow at the foundation of our Re- 
pui)lic, can they expect that the superstructure 
will long stand ? I oppose the adoption of this 
Loeoinpton constitution now and always, let the 
consequences be what they may. Conscious that 
lam right, I leave the result to that Providence 
which has protected and favored us so long. 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 

B U E L L & B L A N C n A II D , PRINTERS, 
1858. 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



016 089 535 4 



